Lazy days and..

It's been an ages since I posted the last diary. Lots of things happened me during 2 weeks. First, the good news is I've passed all the exam I had, (What a relief!) although I didn't get a nice grade as I had been expected. However, that was good enough, I thought, so I decided to celebrate the end of the exams and went out with my classmates on Saturday.  As I had to finish a work for my marketing class, despite of it was holiday, I spent 2 days making a web brochure about  Bilbao city tour and convention Hotels. It wasn't easy so I hardly slept, so when I finished it I was perfectly exhausted. Nevertheless, I felt a craving to go out and have party, drinking cool beer and making friends... The disaster started since then. 

We met at the Plaza Unamuno in Casco Viejo, I was so exited by getting together after a long time, so when we entered a bar I almost vacuumed my Calimocho. Then one of my classmate invited me a shot of yellow liquor, I don't remember exactly how it was called, just remember vaguely it was strong. But, you know, when you go out after having no party during ages, you won't realize how far has it gone down your limit line to drink. And mine must have been down there beside the hell gate. 

I didn't pay attention to myself because I thought I was okay, as my friends who know me well I've ever been drunk even after having party all night (and if I tell them that I was gone with just 2 liquor shot, they won't believe me!), so I kept drinking and the things were starting to happen. I went to toilet and when came out, it was impossible to control my body. I staggered between tables and when I got back to the seat, I couldn't help myself stop spewing up on the floor like a volcano. A second I realized I'd already crossed the line without being aware of it. Couldn't believe it but it was true.

After causing a nuisance to everyone who was sitting at the next table, one of my classmates brought me out of the bar, and suddenly I felt the red light had switched on so I hastily said goodbye and got back home. Then, when I woke up next morning feeling pain in my head, I only partially remembered the way back home. The only one thing I remember was after getting on the metro I had been sleeping, crashing my head into the wall, standing in front of the door. I even had a bump on the forehead. 

At the first time, I thought I'd rather be born again as an cockleshell, snail or something like that which never has to leave their house. Later, I decide not to think about what happened the other day. I don't want to cry over spilled milk, it's kinda shame but how can I delete things I've already done? Best not to think about it. At least I got a lesson. Do not have a lot of confidence in yourself especially when you're drinking, ever. 

Good night!

The house without radiator

It was so cold last night, but fortunately I ain't dead by the cold. It's bit shame that I say it's cold in these days with 10 or 9 degrees, because in Korea the temperature used to fall down below zero during winter. On second thought, I can hardly tell Korea is colder than Spain due to the sensory temperature when I'm in my room. In this house the radiator isn't installed in any room. In other words, we don't have any heating apparatus. How could it be possible? I don't know, but I guess it's because of the mild winter. It never goes down below zero in Bilbao.

In spite of having no equipment to fight with the coldness, I had orderd an electric blanket through Amazon UK few weeks ago. It had costed me just 25 euros, so I had called 'lucky' almost 10 times! Then, when I opened the box after arriving it, I realized why it was so cheep so I couldn't help laughing at myself.

Before opening the box.. the box was strangely lighter than it had to be.

??? maybe it was to protect the contents from damage.

It was also strangely smaller than I thought, but I took it out to take a look inside.

It was very different from that I had imagined. Besides....

??????!!!!!!!???? What the...???!!

I had slipped over about the different plug forms! I couldn't belive that I didn't have considered about the fact!

And look at this pic... I had ordered one single bed size(180*90), however, I got one single cradle size. 

Anyway, after having a lot of shock by being exquisitely stupid, I found a travel adaptor that I always brought on my journey, and it did work. At least I solved one of my NEW problems. Actually, I didn't even care about them, as I  was already used to be suffered these things. Every my mistake that I've commited makes me have more tolerance and problem-solving skills. 

Incidentally, this is the one that is used by korean (the family size electric pad ).

As we have a sendentary lifestyle, we usually put it on our living room, and sit on it. When I was in Korea, everytime it was cold, I was stuck on it watching TV or playing Play Station, eating boxes of mandarins. I really miss those days.. 

It's getting cold again, I'd rather go back to my bed so as not to be frozen again. 

An inquisitive boy

Most of Koreans got slit eyes, especially I do. 

This story is about an inquisitive 5-year-old boy. Mrs. Delfina has 4 grandchildren, one of them is Urco, who is my favorite kid. He always ask me lot of things tirelessly until I am knackered. Last week, we had lunch together with Mrs. Delfina and his family. During the meal, he was staring at me without having his pasta, and suddenly asked me stretching his eyes with fingers.

"How can you see with these eyes? If I do this, I'm not able to see anything."

"I don't have any problem because since I was born I have them, so I'm used to. Don't worry."

"Why do you have Chinese eyes? Aren't you Korean?"

"It's because all Koreans, Japanese and Chinese are the same race. We look similar."

"Why you look similar?"

"Okay, why you look like French or Portuguese?"

"I don't look like French!"

"Actually, we don't look the same either. It's just because you're not able to distinguish the difference among Asian people, like I can't notice where they from untill they tell me when I meet people from Europe."

And the theme kept changing, 

"Do you like Spongebob?"

"Who likes the Simpsons? Raise your hand."

"Can you make a paper-folded plane?

"Can you understand me while I'm speaking so fast?"

"Why do you wear those worn pants?" 

(I was wearing stonewashed blue jeans.)

And his mother intrude into this mini-hearing, 

"No, it's just a fashion. There's nothing wrong with those pants. Stop asking and have your pasta."

"Why is it fashion? It's ugly. I don't like them."

"Okay, okay, please stop talking and empty your plate!"

"But mama, I want to know why!"

"Enough! Stop!"

Finally, his mother was sick and tired so stopped his neverending questions. I was also exhausted by answering to all his curiosity, so then it was good decision that she made him be quiet.

He always reminds me my little cousins. They are so lovely but also exhausting. They never get tired. I think, all children in the world are same as well as those kids. As I'm a person who is easy to be dead tired with children, I'd better get a job with adults. I don't know how I could be working at school teaching children for half a year. When I got the job, no one believed the fact even I didn't. And the most amazing thing was, children liked me! I had never expected it but they did like me. I still get in touch with some of them, and still keep the letters which was given to me by my lovely students.

Okay, I'll go back to the real life. Time to STUDY!

Good night!

A day off from studying..

Today I had an exam of Turism Market Structure, although I had studied a lot, I feel like I have barely passed it. The matter is, even though I understood and remember all the contents it didn't come out the words in spanish, due to lack of vocabulary. And I can't make it easily untill I repeated those words a thousand times. 

After finished the first class, I was totally knocked down so I was lying on my face on the desk rounding my back like a cat,  and one of my classmate said me "Que coco!". Of course I didn't understand what did it mean, later I found the dictionary but it still remain unsettled. So I asked Irune after the class, who is the granddaughter of Mrs.Delfina. However, she couldn't explain me because we were having conversation only in english.. She comes my house on Monday and Wednesday to improve her english level, but it's more helpful for me. 

Anyway, we were talking about last weekends, and I told her about mine. Before I started the story I hadn't realized that I had had a mournful weekend, and I finally did... As it was so beautiful day I didn't want to stay at home spending my time reading books, so I went out to take a walk. As a matter I was alone, but I didn't care. I strolled from Cabieces where I live, to Portugalete where I lived. I didn't have any purpose so I was just wandering every street that I found then I faced to Puente Colgante to walk along the riverside path to finish my mini-journey. The path was full of lovers, families, and friends. No single one of them was alone but me. I started to feel lonely, at that instant a couple asked me to take their pics with lighthouse in the background. Of course I did it kindly.

As a result I got down more than before, just in time on the headsets it was pouring out a song of Arctic Monkeys.

I'm going back to 505,
If its a 7 hour flight or a 45 minute drive,
In my imagination you're waiting lying on your side,
With your hands between your thighs

OMG, these 'Monkeys' pulled me down over the hellgate. I don't usually feel so lonely but on Saturday, it was horrible. Then I had long way back home although it took just 20 min.

After listening my story, Irune laughed a lot because my face was so ludicrous, I didn't see it but could feel it. Anyway, I can't afford to make a new boyfriend and I don't even want to, nevertheless I don't understand why sometimes I feel so lonely. It may be thanks to my bro. Everytime I phone him he boasts me about his new girlfriends. But I won't care, he'll lose her soon by the military service.. poor him. 

My sad story is over and his, will be start. Repeat, poor you bro.

Sunday Losers

Hello everyone!

Are you having good weekend? Last night I couldn't sleep at all, as I'd been drinking a lot of coffee watching Paranomal Activity 2. The movie wasn't so bad. Nevertheless, it failed to make any impression on me. I think it's because of the culture difference between the West and the East. We are more scared off by the vindictive spirit (like Sadako in the movie "Ring") than poltergeist or demon. Anyway, due to the fact that I've lost whole sunday morning, I've studied just little bit, and no more(as usual). 

Today I'd like to recommend you a Korean indie band, whose members are my friends.

SUNDAY LOSERS (일요일의 패배자들)

http://dumbmoon.wo.to/losers/main.htm

In short, if you enter their web site, you can listen their music. Of course all the things on this web page are written in Korean, so I link three of their songs.

The letter from hell

Dog-eat-dog world

Sunday losers

This is the lyric of The letter from hell.
Sadly I won't translate their lyrics into English, it'll clearly lose the sense of the words.

난 어젯밤 편지를 받았어요 지옥에서 온 편지

지옥리스트의 첫번째에 나의 이름이 올라가있다고

난 지옥을 믿지 않았어요 하나님을 증오했죠

언제나 약한자들의 눈물만 훔쳐가는 하나님을 난 죽여버리고 싶었죠

오오오

하지만 난 지옥을 보았어요 하나님의 똥구멍에 

빨간머리 천사가 나의 달콤한 잠을 깨우고

날 지옥에 던져 버렸죠

하나님의 똥구멍속에 같혀있는 수많은 사람들

똥구멍에 목이 걸려 눈물흘리는 사람들

오 하나님 당신에게 복수하겠어요

난 이젠 겁나게 되었어요 당신을 사랑해요

빌어먹을 찬송가의 리듬에 맞춰 딸딸이도 치지요

난 병신같은 성경을 손에 들고 당신을 찬양해요

교회가 날 병신으로 만드는것도 알고있지만

천국에 가고 싶어요

KKK와 함께모여 손을잡고 노래를 부르며

잠에빠진 천사들의 엉덩이에 엉덩이에 입맞추고 싶어라
할렐루야!

Why do I introduce this band now? Because I feel like I'm totally Sunday loser... yesterday I was Saturday loser, and  I'm 100% sure that tomorrow I'll be Monday loser (say everybody Lo-ser!). 

Okay, it's time to go back to study.

I hope you enjoy the music.

Good night!

Exam, exam and exam

Today I've been lying on the bed whole morning. After getting me up, I saw a message from one of my classmates to invite me a cake tasting in the Bilbao city center, but I had already missed it. Yes, I'm natural born lazy although my mun didn't gave me a life of lazybones. Anyway, the next week I have three exams (two exams from Reception and Reservations and one from FOL), so I have to study... I don't want to fail the exam anymore, because I'm eager to be free on December enjoying Christmas holidays in Germany.

As you know, studying in foreign language isn't an easy thing, it takes a lot of time and many efforts to archive the goal, nevertheless, I already loosen myself. It's time to be tied up at the desk.

By the way, everytime I study FOL (Formacion y orientacion laboral, I don't know how exactly say it in English. Does anybody know?) I think the Spanish Labor is more helpful than Korea's for the workers, we have a rigid labor law... When I was working at a private school in Jechon, Korea, I wasn't guaranteed my rights as employee although I had signed the full time contract. My american co-worker's case, it was worse than mine. Everytime our supervisors were strongly spying us and sometimes forced us to do awkward things. Now the school is warning by being bad for teachers, sadly it's a good news for us who couldn't strike out against injustice. When we left the school there wasn't absolutely nothing that we could do because it was a losing game.

Long story short, for the moment I consider favorably the Spanish Labor, but I don't tell it's definately better than Korean Labor, I'll hold back judgement untill I have more experience with it. I'm always doubtful of everything before I ascertain the fact.

It's time to study, but first I'll watch some movies before I do that. My own goal is to enjoy my life, not to win the struggle for existence. Isn't it a good excuse?

Good night!

Spanish Costoms vs 'I' (about retained package)

Hello everybody!

I'm 24-year-old korean girl who study Hotel Management in Bilbao, Spain. I've been in Spain for years, and have felt a lot of thing living in this country. I may need some help from you, or I could give you a piece of advice to live as foreigner (especially from Asia) in Spain.

It's very sad to start my first page with this story. 

This case started with the package of my winterclothes which had been sent me from my mother. She sent me 2 package through EMS (Express Mail Service) on Sep 13, and the next week arrived just one of them. So I called to the Cental Post Office of Korea, and they told me it is retained at the Spanish Costoms. I thought it wouldn't be long to take it back, but I was totally wrong.

At first, I made some calls to Spanish Costoms in Barajas Airport to ask how I could get it back, but NOBODY picked up the phone, so I called the Central Post Office of Spain, however they just kept saying me they didn't have to do anything about it because it was not what the Post Office could do while the package was at customs. As I'm korean, I couldn't understand it but finally accepted because I'm in Spain, not in Korea. Therefore I waited patiently untill they sent me an arrival notice to continue the necessary process, but nothing arrived me. The grandma who lived with me at the moment also tried to ask thousand times but still NO ONE in customs picked up the phone, they didn't even have an internet page nor e-mail address, what could I do??

Finally I asked Beatriz, the secretary of the school  for help (on Oct 5) because I couldn't see anything positive on my way, when she called they finally picked up the phone! They explained her they had already sent me the notice, and we found that they confused the number 7 with number 1 (how could they!), so the notice had arrived to my neighbor on the first floor. It wasn't funny, because it had already passed 3 weeks without doing anything. Anyway, at least I could receive the notice, and they prolonged the time limit(the date of return to origin of shipment) until Oct 25. Again, I thougth then would go well everything, later I realized I was totally idiot. 

There was another korean guy who was at the same class, his package was also retained at customs so we did every procedures together. After received the arrival notice we sent the necessary documents (the copy of arrival notice, affidavit of value even thought I didn't know exactly what were in the package..) via ADT Postales, which is costoms agent authorized Correos (Spanish Post Office), then they sent us back a sheet of paper from Speedtrans International S.L., which contained the import budget about our package. His was just 30 euros, and mine was 90.33 euros. Everyone (even the korean guy) couldn't understand why mine was much expensive than his, while his package was 6 kg heavier than mine. 

But, as I really wanted to get my package soon, I sent them the money via EFT on Oct 13. and my friend did it too. Three days later, he got his package with a receipt but I didn't, no one at my school could understand the situation, why he could, and why I couldn't. I wrote an e-mail to ADT postals again then they wrote me back, there was only a single line of text.

"SU PAQUETE TIENE QUE PASAR INSPECCION DE SANIDAD"

(your package must pass the health inspection)

So, I found some information about it on Correo's page, they had written that after received the fransfer a package could pass the health inspection and nomally it took a week. Being stupid, I waited a week while I was losing my temper, if I have been in Korea I would have found other solution but as I'm in out of my country, I didn't want to make a trouble (when I was in Salamanca I used to get in trouble although I hadn't done anything because I'm from Asia.. so sad), and finally last monday (on Oct 9) they told to Beatriz (the secretary) that my SSN didn't worth for the process because it was from foreigner (here I have a question : so how could my classmate get his package? Both of us are from KOREA, not just me.). So Beatriz sent them her SSN, because there was no way to solve it with mine.

Now, do you really want to know what's going on?

Yesterday Beatriz got an e-mail from Speedtrans International S.L., it was totally rubbish. 

They asked me 150 euros if I wanted to get back my bloody package, because they had gotten the bank transfer after the date limit, (it wasn't true, I had sent them on Oct 13 and the date was Oct 25.) and if I didn't    agree, they would send back my package to Korea. 

I was so pissed off, I had spend almost 2 months with this worthless crap being under stress, and I didn't want to handle it no more, so ask Beatriz for writting back that I DON"T WANT TO THE PACKAGE ANY MORE, I don't even care if they will send it back to Korea or to Japan. 

Do you know what they did? I attach an image from the Correo's page. 

Untill yesterday, there weren't the last two lines. I had been checking this page everyday and there had been only the upper 4 lines. They added those cute 2 lines hurriedly to excuse everything. As I wrote before I sent them 90.33 euros on Oct 13, however they had mentioned that they had got my bloody money on Oct 29. It's time to ask agian, how could it take more than 2 week to transfer money? Is it normal in Spain? This is completely unacceptable and unfair. Now they aim to make everything is my fault. 

The result of this case is, I lost my money, my package, and last 2 months. Is there any way to sue them? I'm sure there isn't, I will lose more money and more time, getting more stress even I win the case. It's not worth to do. 

I'm just hopping the package won't be disappeared on the way back home. My mother will be so sad and disappointed... She also tried everything that she could do in Korea, how can I explain her? 

If I have to give you an advice, 

DON'T RECEIVE A PACKAGE FROM OUTSIDE EUROPE!

For me? I won't. Never.

Good night!